


Freedom Fighters

by MelyndaR



Series: The Primaries [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, CA:CW canon-divergence, Multi, Polyamory, gaining color in your sight as you gain soulmates, soulmate quartets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:10:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6401800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of their first meetings are rough, some of their second meetings are even worse. Somewhere in here there's supposed to be a war, and they don't even all know each other yet. Were it not for the assurance that they were all going to live until they met, most of them would wonder if they were even meant to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one uses the proper primary colors of vision - red, blue, and green. It's also the first multi-chapter story in this series, just because it absolutely refused to be condensed at all!

Clint smirked, despite the raging pain in his broken arm, at the pretty nurse who met him at the emergency room door. Hospitals weren’t his style, but he was presently too far away from any proper SHIELD medics, and even he was smart enough to know that this break needed looked at _now_. He was pretty sure he’d shattered something, actually. “Well, hello there, _nurse_!”

Her eyes widened, and the dry smile she was already giving him turned absolutely bright as sunshine as she said, “Hello to you, too, Mr. Jensen.  I’m Laura - and you have beautiful eyes… like the sky, blue, right?”

 _Oh. Oh,_ yes! _Oh, no…_

So giving a false name may have backfired on him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care less as he eased himself off of the examination table and wrapped his unbroken arm brazenly around her waist. “So I’ve been told. Looks like it’s blue for the both of us, sweetheart. By the way,” he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “My name’s Clint Barton.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, but he kissed her right there in the middle of the hospital before she could ask him any questions.

* * *

Life with HYDRA was exactly as the Asset had always seen it – black and white and filled with shades of gray. He obeyed orders, thereby ensuring that he was treated as decently as they would ever care to treat him. A equaled B, if he did especially well he might even receive a reward, and that was all that there was to it. He was told to do something, he did it, he lived to survive another day. Simple.

Black and white.

He was transported, and ordered to fight a number of KGB Red Room girls – to the death, where possible – to see if they were indeed ready for graduation. A simple thing for him…

Until it wasn’t simple.

 _“Natalia!”_ the girls’ trainer called yet another graduate into the middle of the room, and she came, picking her way around three of her fallen classmates with head held high, already tensed to fight despite the ingrained grace that she moved with.

“ _Fight well, little ballerina,”_ he muttered darkly, his eyes equally dark, the little voice forever screaming in the back of his head having fallen silent with something like horror.

Her eyes flickered with something that the Asset couldn’t identify, she glanced for a split second at her own hair, and inhaled slowly, assuming a fighting stance as she replied, “ _And you, slave_.”

Her hair was red, he realized, and it was the first flash of color he’d ever seen in his life as she sprang towards him, ready to fight for her life.

Yet, he couldn’t have killed her if he tried – not even the Asset could’ve done such a thing, and that was _without_ the little voice springing to life and _screaming_ at him.

But it wasn’t as if he could truly help her. He couldn’t even rescue himself, how could he have rescued her? The kindest thing he could do for her was not kill her. He let her live, the redhead named Natalia… but as soon as he tapped out of their fight, he had to let her go.

But somehow… _somehow_ he would help her…

* * *

 The Asset had fought tooth and nail to keep his handlers from figuring out that Natalia was his soulmate. He had somehow managed to keep them from realizing that he’d met one of his soulmates at all, and he meant to keep it that way for as long as possible.

He was given missions, he carried them out, he gave mission reports. Over and over, always; he had long lost track of the days, didn’t even know what year it was. But he didn’t care, so long as he could keep the thought of Natalia locked safely away in his mind and away from his cruel masters. He _had_ to avoid having his memory wiped at all costs, so he had never followed orders more meekly, never carried missions out so smoothly, as he did now – all for her sake.

But, once again, he was hit with an “until.” He did all of those things “ _until…_ ”

“It’ll be a simple assassination,” the handler assured him, his tone clearly laced with malice as he showed him the file. “Wipe the little bug off the face of the planet, and HYDRA will be truly grateful for it.”

“I thought he was a bird, not a bug,” a second handler standing nearby commented. His partner slugged him for the terrible joke, but the Asset couldn’t care less.

_Until…_

Until he had to chase the lighter-haired man halfway across Beijing, only for them to end up staring at one another, guns drawn and pointing at each other’s eyes as they stood on a rooftop.

Jaw clenched, shaking and exhausted in more ways than he could name, the little voice in the back of the Asset’s mind came out of his mouth for once, requesting gruffly, “Do it. Please.”

The infamous Hawkeye froze, blinking as his world sparked with sudden flashes of red. “I can’t do that, buddy,” he said softly. “Not to you.”

Behind Hawkeye, the blue sky flared into searing color, and the Asset croaked again, “Please.”

Swallowing roughly and looking thoroughly lost, Hawkeye tucked his gun away, shaking his head again. “I can’t.”

“But I’m supposed to kill you,” the Asset replied softly. “And I can’t do that either.”

“Well, I know I’m walking out of here alive,” Hawkeye informed him with certainty. “I haven’t met our fourth yet.”

The Asset’s gun hadn’t twitched from where it was pointing at Hawkeye’s face – there were handlers watching him, always, and he had to keep them at bay, keep them from realizing something was wrong – but he spoke softly and simply, saying, “I’ve met Natalia. She’s… a Russian on… in the KGB. She’s in trouble. I can’t help her.”

Hawkeye nodded, seeming to age before the Asset’s eyes as he took in the information. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“But I’m supposed to kill you,” he croaked again.

“I can’t let you do that; we both know that this doesn’t end like that. I’ve got our other girl – Laura, a nice civilian nurse – to get home to.”

“Then how –?”

Still looking tortured, Hawkeye whipped his gun back out and slammed it, hard, into the side of the Asset’s head. Darkness cloaked his vision before he could even finish his question.

“I’ll find Natalia, buddy,” Clint promised the unconscious man, having already spotted the Asset’s incoming friends, and knowing that he needed to get out immediately. “And I’ll find you again, too.”


	2. Chapter 2

For his failure to kill Hawkeye, the Asset was beaten. But they didn’t wipe him. Thank God, they didn’t wipe his memory – didn’t take away Natalia, or worse yet, put him in such a state that he admitted who Natalia and Hawkeye – he didn’t even know the man’s real name, it hadn’t been deemed important enough to tell him – were to him.

By the time his handlers were done with him, there were a circle of men surrounding him, who had, only moment ago, been lashing out at him with booted feet, lead pipes, anything else they felt like using. He healed quickly, so they felt they had to work to make their blows count.

One of the handlers dragged him upright by his hair, snarling, “What do you think we ought to do now?”

It wasn’t a question he was actually supposed to answer, he knew, but with a sudden flash of inspiration he did anyway. Spitting out blood, he replied, “Send Natalia to kill Hawkeye.”

The handler snorted, releasing his hair with a jolt. “Who?”

The Asset hung his head, breathing roughly – _had they actually managed to crack a rib this time?_ – as he explained, “Natalia, one of the KGB girls from... the graduation sparring... in… I think Russia. Send her to finish the job, if you can.”

A second handler knew who he was talking about, apparently, because he said, “He means the Black Widow.”

“What is she?” the Asset’s main abuser of the day asked. “Nineteen now?” He punched roughly at the Asset’s ribs one last time – _yes, definitely cracked_ – asking, “You think she can do better than you?”

He saw stars at the blow, but still, desperate to try and get his soulmates to meet – to try and get Natalia help, to get her _out_ , and _some sort of safe_ – he gasped, “She’s stronger than you’d think.”

The handler stared at him for a long moment before turning to the man who had identified Natalia and ordering, “You. Go set this up like he said.”

The man disappeared to carry out the order, and the Asset found he could breathe a little easier despite the pain. Either he’d just gotten Natalia killed… or he’d just gotten her a way out.

* * *

Clint was really sick and tired of staring down the barrels of people’s guns. _Honestly, what was the point if he knew he still had to meet Natalia before he died? Still, he would rather avoid getting shot where it was possible._

“Put down your toy, Widow,” he said dryly, staring past his strung at-the-ready bow and arrow at her. “I don’t die today.”

There was a split-second pause from the girl, and, really, he should’ve taken the shot… only, she was _just_ a _teenager,_ and those sort of shots were never easy, he knew from experience. So he hesitated, too, only for her to reply in a thickly accented voice, “Or maybe you will, _Hawkeye_. At least you’ll die on a day with such a pretty blue sky…”

He snapped to attention, his vision zeroing in on her beautiful _green_ eyes. “Natalia!” he gasped in surprise before he could stop himself.

He hadn’t been given her real name by SHIELD, but he knew it now, in an instant without a doubt.

“Don’t do this, Natalia,” he asked simply, trying to stay calm, even as, for the first time ever, he truly feared for his life.

All of his guarantees were gone now. This woman – this girl, his _soulmate_ – could be the one to kill him. He might never leave this shoddy hotel room that he’d cornered her in.

“Natalia, I’ve heard about you, from more than just SHIELD files. Our soulmate, the man – the Winter Soldier – I’ve met him. He, he really seemed to want me to help you. He said you were in trouble.” That froze the teenager well enough; he saw her hands begin to tremble slightly. So he kept talking. “Natalia, sweetheart, let me get you out of here – for the Soldier’s sake, let’s you and me get out of here, and at least one of you can be saved. I’ll get you out of the KGB, safely away from the Red Room. I’ll take you home, I’ll let you meet Laura – she’s our fourth. What – what color can you not see yet? What’s Laura going to give you?”

Slowly, as if she had to remind herself to say the words in English, Natalia said without lowering the gun, “You are blue. The ‘Soldier’ as you call him, was red – is red? I do not know…”

“Because the color that came with him flickers in and out all the time?”

She nodded.

“Yeah,” Clint smiled tensely, dropping his bow and arrow to his side and edging a centimeter closer to her. “It does for me too.”

“ _If_ ,” Natalia said emphatically. “I go with you… we will find him too?”

“Absolutely,” Clint nodded without a second thought. “That’s always been my plan.”

“Plan,” she muttered, and the word worked like a sort of reminder – her gun steadied again, pointing straight at his heart. “I was sent to kill you. That is my plan.”

“Oh, yeah?” Clint asked, going rigid again. “I was sent to kill you too, but I’m not going to do that. I want to take you into SHIELD – the people I work for – get you straight, and put those skills of yours to _good_ use.”

Confusion creased her brow as she puzzled aloud, “The Winter Soldier – my handler said he believed that I could do this mission, that he recommended I be the one to kill you.”

“Don’t you see?” he asked with a teary laugh. “That was the closest he could get to shipping you to me! He _wants_ you to leave, Natalia, and if he’s supposed to be some sort of superior of yours, aren’t you supposed to do what he wants?”

That was flimsy logic, and Clint knew it, even though he instinctively knew he was right. The Winter Soldier’s blue eyes had been _swamped_ with concern for Natalia the one time they’d talked; this _was_ the other man’s plan… Now, hopefully, he could get Natalia to go along with it.

Natalia’s expression swarmed with too many emotions for him to read, but uncertainty was still chief among them, so Clint did something stupid. He stepped as close to her as he dared, the gun she held at the ready digging into his chest as he looked her in the eye and said again, “Natalia, _please_ come home with me. I _won’t_ kill you – not now, not ever. Kill me if you want to, but I _refuse_ to abandon another soulmate.”

He still couldn’t read her expression, but after a beat of terrifying dead silent during which he said a mental goodbye to Laura, she lowered the gun to her side, He remembered to breath as she asked him curiously, “Does your… Laura know about me or the Soldier?”

Clint’s heart twisted with guilt at the unexpected question. “No. And I don’t want to tell her. I _couldn’t_ tell her. Laura’s a nurse, and a civilian. She’s _good,_ and I try to keep this part of my life away from her. To know that this is who her soulmates are… I don’t know that she’d be able to stand it.”

Natalia tapped her gun against the open palm of her other hand, displaying the casual familiarity of someone who’d spent _far_ too much time around weapons… _and she was still so young._ He could see why the Winter Soldier had been so concerned for her. “ _If_ I go home with you,” she said thoughtfully. “I will eventually put that theory to the test no matter how hard I try not to. Something will happen eventually. I _know_ I’m not… not right, not good…” she crossed her arms over her middle, looking troubled as she hugged herself, and Clint had to fight the urge not to wrap her in his arms besides. “I know I am broken… and I do not wish to break anyone else. Let alone your Laura.”

“Hey,” Clint shrugged, reminding her casually, gently, “She’s your Laura too, if you want to go meet her.”

The redhead before him offered up a small smile, as if she wasn’t certain how to convince him that she was being genuine, as she said softly, “I think I would like that very much.”

He nodded, smiling back at her as he began to tuck his bow and arrow away. “Good.” He offered her his hand, and as she took it, her smile grew. “Then let’s do this.”


	3. Chapter 3

It took months of retraining and rehabilitation for Natalia – now known as Natasha Romanoff – before Fury would even _think_ about letting her off of SHIELD property. The whole time, Clint had been offering half-explanations, half-excuses to Laura, trying to explain to her that, “yes, I’ve met one of our soulmates, but, no, she can’t come here yet,” while also keeping her safe and in the dark as to _why_ exactly Natasha couldn’t come around.

Both women were getting on edge with him as he did his best to play an unlikely go-between, and Clint, in turn, was becoming increasingly tempted to bodily harm Nick Fury. Eventually, he stormed into the director’s office and demanded sharply, “One weekend in Iowa – that’s _all_ I’m asking for here, Fury. I’ve got two women about to claw my eyes out, and no fourth here to help me negotiate. Let me get them together for a couple of days, let them get the meeting out of their system.”

“You think that’ll _help_ you?” Fury asked a little incredulously, eyeing him from across his desk.

“At this point, it can’t hurt!”

Fury looked like he was as amused as he ever got, as well as being ready to disagree, but for once Clint shot him a glare dark enough to make the director shake his head and reply, “Have it your way. I was going to clear her in a couple days’ time anyway.”

Clint exhaled deeply, replying, “Thank you.”

Fury smirked, watching him go as he replied, “Don’t thank me yet…”

 _Those two women,_ the director had a feeling, _were going to be quite the combined force to be reckoned with, if they so choose._

* * *

“What do you mean, you didn’t _tell her_?” Natasha asked, looking at Clint incredulously as he landed the hover jet in a field in Iowa.

Clint smiled, clearly enjoying the thought as he replied, “I think she’ll enjoy the surprise.”

“Enjoy having a broken monster show up on her doorstep…?” Natasha reiterated slowly, disbelievingly.

Clint shook his head, the corners of his mouth tilting down in disapproval. “We’ve talked about this, Nat – you _are not_ broken.”

“I’m not _whole_ or _normal_ ,” Natasha muttered her usual argument under her breath.

He opted to ignore those remarks, saying instead, “All things considered, Laura’s actually handled this a lot better than I thought she might. I don’t think I’ve given her enough credit since I met her.” Natasha shrugged, and Clint couldn’t help but add, “Besides, Laura’s a nurse – if anyone can heal a ‘broken’ ex-assassin, it’s going to be her.”

They left the jet, and Natasha followed him all the way into Laura’s old family home without a word, looking around, wide-eyed and curious the entire time.

“Laura, honey, are you home?” Clint called out, opening the door. “I brought you a present!”

A red eyebrow ticked upward at him as Laura rounded the corner. “Clint?” she asked, hope and uncertainty warring in her dark eyes, her gaze never wavering from Natasha.

“Say ‘hi,’ ladies,” Clint suggested with a grin, gently pushing Natasha ahead of him. “And you two had better like each other; I’ve practically been having to threaten to murder Fury to make this happen – and you two have _both_ been threatening to hurt me.”

Again one red eyebrow came up, and Natasha turned to him, looking a little more like herself as she smirked and asked, “Do you really think that’s going to stop?”

Laura snorted, informing Clint, “She’s right, sweetie.” She came forward and draped an arm around Natasha’s shoulders, telling the redhead brightly, “I like you already, Natasha Romanoff.”

Natasha eyed the arm around her shoulders uncertainly before she ever so slightly burrowed into the touch, murmuring, “I like you too, I think.”

“Good,” Laura murmured gently, all the things flitting through Natasha’s eyes instantly turning her as gentle as could be. She tugged Clint to her on her other side and initiated a three-way hug as she said, “Now let’s see if we can’t figure out how to _love_ one another.”

* * *

Years passed before Natasha and Clint were willing to admit that they’d even met their fourth. For years, they kept the secret between the two of them, carefully guarded from the rest of the world and Laura. Some days, months, _years,_ were easier than others, because there were times when the color that the Winter Soldier had given them – red, in both cases – did go out for a while.

It was only because Team Delta knew that he hadn’t met Laura – and therefore wouldn’t yet die – that they managed not to occasionally lose their minds with worry for him.

Natasha saw him one more time – not only did he shoot her, but he was wearing a _muzzle,_ so he was unable to speak – and then they _almost_ told Laura the truth.

 _So many_ times they _almost_ told Laura the truth.

They never came closer to telling her than when SHIELD fell. But, still, they didn’t. They didn’t want to worry her over something that they had come to the conclusion that they wouldn’t be able to fix unless fate itself intervened.

Steve Rogers was not so easily convinced. He and Sam Wilson did their best to track down the Winter Soldier – _Bucky Barnes_ , and hadn’t that been a shock? – and, without offering a reason, Clint and Natasha occasionally helped them out.

For two years, none of their leads led them to Bucky.

 _Until_ …

Until one _did_.

Not that anyone thought to tell Clint or Natasha this. Instead, Steve and Sam retrieved him, and took him home to live with them and their other two soulmates, Sharon Carter and Maria Hill, in the New Avengers Facility.

After a visit to the farm, _those_ were the facts – and the soulmate – that Natasha came back to the facility to.

She didn’t even have time to _speak_ with him, let alone Clint or – God help them – Laura, before the world went sideways though. Peggy Carter died, Steve and Tony both lost it a little bit, and a literal civil war erupted. Natasha ended up fighting beside Stark, Laura took the kids and went off grid, and Clint aligned with Rogers – and Bucky.

_He wasn’t going to forsake his soulmate a second time._

Somehow, it was Bucky who approached Clint first, on the quinjet as they flew to the farmhouse, which had been volunteered as their team’s unlikely base of operations – the one place Natasha would swear Clint would never allow to get embroiled in something like this.

Bucky slid into the copilot’s seat beside Clint, silent as a ghost, and Clint glanced sideways at him, automatically tensing. “I know you, don’t I?” Bucky asked in a low voice.

He’d seemed to tense when the archer did, so Clint did his best to relax as he replied, “Yeah… we met once… buddy.”

Glancing cautiously over at him, Clint caught the way the sniper froze, seeming to run through thoughts or memories in his head before he breathed, “’Buddy.’ You’re… you’re my soulmate… aren’t you?”

Clint nodded, wishing that he could put the controls on autopilot, but not daring to when he knew that FRIDAY could take over the bird that way. “You were sent to kill me; I knocked you out cold and left you there to your handlers.”

A pause, then – “Good.”

“’Good’?” Clint repeated on a snort. “If Cap finds out that I left you, he’s gonna kill me! I might even kill me over it!”

Bucky’s head snapped towards him before Clint could even blink. “Don’t you _dare_ talk like that,” the soldier snarled, his voice low and impassioned. Surprised at the ferocity in his tone, Clint ran back over what he’d just said, realized what it had sounded like, but, selfishly, he stayed quiet. “You tell me right now that you’ve never tried something like that.”

Clint chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second before replying, “Not since I met Laura.”

“Laura…” Bucky murmured the name, relaxing by degrees as he mulled that over. “You… told me about her. ‘A… nice civilian nurse,’ you said.”

Clint nodded. “We have kids now – three of them – Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel, Nate.”

There was another – particularly long – beat of silence, but Clint had a feeling that Bucky had something in particular on his mind, so he stayed silent and waited him out. “I told you about a girl, too,” Bucky finally said, “Our fourth soulmate.”

 _Ah_. “Yeah,” Clint nodded. “Natalia Romanova, back then. Now, Natasha Romanoff.”

“The woman with Stark,” Bucky murmured the realization, horror lacing his tone.

Another nod from the pilot, and a discouraged, “yeah,” that came out on a sigh. There was another pause – every one seemed to be getting longer than the last – as he allowed Bucky to absorb the idea, before Clint said softly, “But you saved her life, you know… asking for her to be sent to kill me. Funny thing is, the guys from SHIELD had the same idea; they sent me to kill her at the same time. I ended up bringing her into SHIELD; she got as safe as she’s ever gonna be, and she got straight.”

“And now this,” Bucky replied wearily. “And now _me_ , coming along and tearing apart this team, tearing apart your relationship with her, and Laura’s relationship with her, too.”

“No.” Clint shook his head firmly. “What Nat and I do to or with each other is not your fault, and there’s _no way_ you can take responsibility for her relationship with Laura! You’ve never even _met_ Laura, Bucky! This is _not_ your fault.”

Bucky turned to him, his eyes far too perceptive as he replied simply, “And it’s not _your_ fault that you were put in a position to have to leave me behind way back when.”

Clint blinked, bit his tongue, and stared straight ahead in silence.

Bucky hummed under his breath, narrowing his eyes. “You know,” he said softly. “I’m no stranger to blond punks who want to bear the weight of the world, of their comrades, on their shoulders, but I’ve yet to let my best friend do it. What makes you think I’d let my _soulmate_ do that?” He squeezed Clint’s shoulder, pointing out in a soft voice, “You said Laura’s a nurse… maybe I’m not the only one who needs to let themselves heal.”

Clint inhaled a shuddering breath, but otherwise didn’t say a word. Bucky nodded, as if he understood all the things Clint couldn’t bring himself to say, and just sat there beside him in silence.


	4. Chapter 4

_He wanted – no,_ needed _– to talk to Natasha._

That was the one thing that Bucky knew. In the middle of all of this crazy, in the middle of the two teams literally clashing in a parking lot, that was _all_ he knew for sure. But when he looked over, Clint and Natasha were fighting with the grace and skill of two people who knew each other inside and out, and Bucky was left to deal with T’Challa. _Brilliant_ – and exactly _not_ what he wanted.

But then, he’d gotten very much accustomed to getting nothing that he wanted.

All the same, he had to try. A solid punch to the sternum with his metal arm sent T’Challa flying off of the roof where they’d been fighting, and Bucky sprung down to Clint and Natasha in record time. He plucked Natasha off of Clint, locking her against him with his metal arm. She was facing him, but her hair was blowing all over her face, and doubtlessly clouding her vision as she shot the arm around her a couple of times at point blank range.

He swept the red curls out of the way, pulling out his patented “charmer” smile just for her as he said, “Hey, doll. Long time no see. And, please, stop shooting my arm before I have to call your boss out of the sky and make him take a look at it.”

While Clint watched them, she froze for a second, staring up at Bucky like he housed the stars in his eyes. Just as quickly she came back to herself, slipping out of his grasp like an eel and pointing her gun at  him as she grunted, “Stark’s not my boss.”

“And you’re not going to shoot me,” Bucky replied levelly, doing his best not to give into his fight or flight instinct, because in _every case_ he would fight, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt her.

“Why’s that?” she asked, cocking her gun with her intent clear in her eyes – at least at their surface; Bucky _knew_ he saw the war going on in her _beneath_ the surface.

He pulled out Clint’s old trick, declaring, “I haven’t met Laura yet. I can’t see green,” he shrugged. “So I can’t die.”

“But you can both kill me,” Natasha pointed out without missing a beat. She turned the gun onto Clint, adding, “Or I could kill him.”

“You know we won’t do that, Nat,” Clint stated. “We’ve all been here before – _all_ of us met each other while _trying to kill each other_ , and yet we all walked away. That’s what’s going to happen again.”

“Look around you, Barton!” she snapped. “You think we’re _all_ just going to – to hold hands around a campfire and pour our hearts out?!”

“No,” Clint snorted.

“But a ceasefire wouldn’t kill us, neither would sitting down and _discussing_ things like adults,” Bucky added rationally.

“As a matter of fact,” Clint added. “At this rate, it might actually kill, you know, _less_ of us?”

Natasha looked between the two of them, sighing after a beat as she asked, “After this, the three of us go home to Laura and the kids? Assuming,” here she looked solely at Clint. “That _she_ doesn’t try to kill us for not telling her?”

Bucky didn’t understand what they were talking about, but he let it slide for now, as Clint told Natasha, “Actually, the farmhouse became Rogers’ base of operations, but I can probably get them cleared out between the time I call Laura on her burner phone and she when actually gets home with the kids.”

“So we are calling for a ceasefire?” Bucky double-checked.

Still looking distrustful and unhappy, Natasha nodded, muttering, “I’ll see what I can do,” as she turned her attention to the comm in her ear and asked, “Did Stark’s guys hear all that?”

“Yeah,” Stark replied. “And calling a ceasefire is like the only thing any of us understood. The rest is a big question mark.”

“—That you’re not going to get answers to,” Natasha assured him.

 “Why not?” Vision inquired.

“Because it’s my business, my life, and my soulmates, so butt out,” Natasha snapped, before ripping the comm out of her ear and dropping it onto the asphalt.

Clint chuckled as Bucky pulled Natasha back to him, saying, “I knew there was a reason I love you, doll.”

“Because I get fed up with the idiot stunts you dumb boys pull?”

“Close enough,” Bucky replied, sharing Clint’s amusement as he leaned in to kiss her.

When they pulled apart, Natasha smirked up at him, asking teasingly, “Okay, I gotta ask: was that your first kiss since 1945?”

“I refuse to answer that,” Bucky replied instantly.

Clint cracked up in earnest, and Natasha raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Don’t worry,” she promised him. “We’ll be sure to make up for lost time, I’m sure.”

“Promise?”

“With pleasure.”

From the sky, Rhodey called out warily, “Get a room, you guys!”

“We weren’t even doing anything,” Natasha complained.

Steve came up in time to hear her remark, and he put in his two cents by saying, “One thing you need to know about Bucky Barnes is that he’s _always_ up to something.”

“ _I’m_ always up to something?” Bucky asked incredulously. “My memory isn’t sketchy enough to believe _that_ , punk.”

Steve shrugged, grinning as he replied, “It was worth a shot.”

Clint one arm each around Bucky and Natasha’s shoulders, saying, “Sorry to interrupt, but… how about we go home, guys?”

Natasha smiled at the thought… and Bucky’s eyebrows drew together like he wasn’t even sure what to think of the idea anymore.

* * *

When they started to re-board the bird Steve’s team had come in, Natasha slipped up to Clint, looking surprisingly vulnerable as she asked softly, “Do you want a copilot on the way back?”

Clint smiled at her, pulling her to his side and dropping a kiss onto her scalp. “I’d like that.”

It was an apology given and accepted in their own way, Bucky could tell, but it made sense that they would still have more to discuss between themselves, so he wandered away to sit in a corner alone as they became airborne.

Within seconds, Steve came over and sat beside him, looking battered and exhausted, and Bucky had to remind himself that the time for pounding people over hurting Stevie was supposed to be over for the moment. Instead, he asked, “We’re still headed back to Clint’s place?”

Steve nodded, trying for stoic and achieving curious instead as he asked, “You know Barton and Romanoff?”

“They’re two of my soulmates,” he replied levelly.

Steve didn’t even seem surprised. He just nodded, admitting, “I thought so, judging by that scene back there. Doesn’t that make Laura your other soulmate?” Bucky nodded, clenching an unclenching his fists nervously. Steve surmised, “So I’m guessing that you’ve met Barton and Romanoff before, but not Laura.”

Another nod before Bucky inquired a little nervously, “Do you know her – Laura?”

Taking in his oldest friend’s body language, Steve smiled sympathetically, nodding. “I do. And regardless of whatever may be running through your head right now on the subject, you are going to be _great_ for her and the kids, and they are going to be the same for you. You deserve them, Buck, and whatever you may’ve done in the past with HYDRA, I will never believe you’re capable of hurting any of them. So stop thinking you will, and smile. Be _happy_ – you’re going to meet your _soulmate_ today. You’re going to love them, and they’re going to love you.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Be happy” Steve had advised. As in “calm down,” “relax,” “everything is going to be okay.” That kind of happy. Someone needed to tell Clint that, Bucky thought to himself, because the poor man had hit the ground running when they reached the farmhouse, and he hadn’t stopped since. He was going a little crazy, trying to clean things up before Laura and their three kids got back. Bucky understood that, but, geez, _watching_ Clint was making him tired, and that was hard to do most days… even if today – and the last few days – had certainly left him feeling a little more drained then was normal.

T’Challa had been freed to negotiate with Ross on behalf of the Avenges and other powered people, and then go back to Wakanda, but everyone else – even Tony’s people – had been turned into a spur of the moment cleaning crew. Spiderman was vacuuming, Lang and the Iron Idiots – Stark and Rhodes – had been put on grounds keeping, Natasha was doing laundry and helping co-supervise, Wanda, Vision, and Wilson were dusting and doing cleaning in the main rooms, Clint was sweeping and mopping, and Steve and Bucky had been assigned to making the bedrooms look presentable again.

And they were in one of those bedrooms – mostly cleaning, but partially giving Bucky a semi-quiet place to hide out – when the house exploded with the pounding of little feet on wet floors and cries of “Daddy!” and “Auntie Nat!” Bucky’s eyes widened, and as Steve watched him carefully, he pulled into himself, warily eyeing the doorway to the bedroom for any approaching people.

“Buck…” Steve cajoled softly. “Go out there.”

“No.” He shook his head firmly, super-soldier hearing picking up the softer, more-relieved-then-excited voice of a woman as she whispered underneath her children’s cries, “Clint! Natasha… come here, you two.”

“Bucky,” Steve stepped up behind him and gave him a gentle shove as he repeated. “Go! She’s right out there in the kitchen, and she’s _fantastic_.”

“Then you go,” he grumbled under his breath, digging his heels into the shag carpet.

Steve eyed him and, seeming to come to the conclusion that Bucky wasn’t moving anytime soon, shrugged and went around him and out of the room, leaving him alone. Half relieved, half panicked, and still mostly afraid he would ruin this perfectly domestic lifestyle by showing his face, Bucky resumed picking up the clothes that had been scattered around the bedroom floor. As he worked slowly – subconsciously trying to delay the inevitable – he heard people start to leave.

Vision, Lang, Parker, Stark and Rhodes. To Bucky’s surprise, he heard Wanda make her way to one of the bedrooms and shut the door, as if it really was her own in this house. After a whispered conversation with Steve, Wilson left too. Which left Steve, Clint, Natasha, Laura, and three kids out there. Which were still way too many people for Bucky’s tastes.

_Nope, he wasn’t going out there yet._

He did wonder, though, if someone might come in and try to smoke him out. _Steve, probably, or Natasha_ , he decided, and even as the thought of her crossed his mind, he thought he smelled her perfume.

 _Hm._ Looking down at the tank top in his hand, he realized that it was hers, and – in the room alone – he brought the shirt closer to his face, both surprised and not that the scent he associated with one of his soulmates actually helped calm him. Plucking up a jacket from off the doorknob to the closet, he breathed in the scent off that as well with the thought that he would hang the jacket up. But the blush-colored jacket didn’t smell like Natasha’s perfume.

He nearly dropped it in surprise, realizing that the light, fruity scent meant _Laura._

Realizing that he was in the house’s main bedroom – where his soulmates must normally sleep – he quickly stooped to pick the jacket up from the floor. _No use making a mess when he was supposed to be cleaning up._

“Hey there, you.”

Bucky didn’t know the feminine voice that caught him off guard, and the words were spoken only barely soft enough to keep him from whipping around to throw a punch. Instead, he straightened slowly, freezing with his back to the intruder – _no, he was the intruder here_ – as the world outside the window filled with acres of green.

_Laura. They hadn’t sent Natasha or Steve; they’d gotten smart – or was it stupid? – and sent Laura directly. Or she had come in here all on her own. Which was also either really smart or really stupid. Great._

Excitement warred with wariness even as his heart still beat a little quickly from surprise. He strained his ears for any sign of Steve or even Clint or Natasha, only to see Clint and Steve outside with a kid apiece on their shoulders, and Natasha behind them with a baby on her hip.

He didn’t belong anywhere near that scene… or this perfectly normal house.

“Sorry if I startled you.” Laura took a step closer, and if Bucky didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought she was purposely trying to make her steps loud, to let him know where she was, even if he wasn’t going to turn around so he could see her. “Are you looking at the grass? Is it pretty? Green, right? I’ve never seen green yet – unless you want to say something to me so that I can?”

She was cajoling too, then, just in a different way than Steve had, prodding lightly and figuratively, still giving him plenty of space if he felt he needed it. And right now he did.

“I don’t belong here,” he said, his voice soft, but firmer than he ever thought he could’ve made it on _those_ terrible, truthful words.

That quickly, her fruity scent was _right there_ in front of him, as was she, putting herself between him and the window in a few rapid steps, brown eyes fierce as she grasped his metal wrist without a second thought. “ _Yes_ , you do.”

He blinked at her, taken aback, and nearly pulled his wrist away. But he didn’t, and the pad of his thumb ghosted along her arm instead as he said the one – incredibly stupid – thing he could think of: “I thought you wanted to see the grass.”

“I want to see you more,” Laura replied instantly, the tenderness in her eyes unnerving him. He’d done nothing to deserve that. “Clint told me that our soulmate was in here, so of course I came in here to talk to you. It had nothing to do with the grass, and we both know it.”

Bucky swallowed, looking over her head to the grass that stretched out for miles as he asked roughly, “Did Clint tell you how I met him or Natalia?”

“No.” Bucky snorted softly – _thank heaven for small mercies_ – and Laura added, “But given who you were and are, and the fact that you just called Natasha ‘Natalia,’ I’m pretty sure I’ve got some accurate guesses – which I will be discussing with them later.”

“Then you know that I really don’t belong here.” He winced as he pulled away from her, and turned to leave the room. If he didn’t do it now, he might never do it, and he _had_ to leave. He couldn’t endanger them. _Maybe if he hurried, he could slip past the others outside before they noticed he’d left._ “I have to go.”

He made it all the way into the hallway before Laura called after him, “So that’s it? You’re just going to let HYDRA win? Let the KGB guilt you into leaving? Let SHIELD spend another who knows how many years keeping tabs on you?”

He looked at her over his shoulder through the doorway, at her expression full of half-concealed emotion with a layer of calm that he didn’t understand, at her stubborn stance and fiery eyes, at the long hair that she tucked behind her ear – probably some sort of tick Clint and Natasha hadn’t told her about. “What are you talking about? ‘Let HYDRA win?’ I got out.”

“Yes and no.” She took a step towards him, just one, with a small shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve never pretended to understand what my soulmates have gone through, but it seems to me that if you let your fear of what you’ve done under them control what you do _now_ , you’re still letting them control you. So… are you going to let them win, or are you going to stay here, with me, Clint, Nat, and the kids, and fight towards living the life that _you_ want. Because you don’t _really_ want to live on the run forever, do you?”

“No, of course not,” he answered before he could stop himself.

“Then _stay_.” She stretched a hand out towards him, approaching slowly again, as if he was a wounded animal – and maybe, in some way, he was. _But she loved him anyway, didn’t she? And so did Clint and Natasha…_ “Just _try_ to stay? Please? You’re one of our soulmates, James Buchanan Barnes, and we _want_ – we _need_ – you here.”

He found himself clasping her hand in his – flesh against flesh – almost without thinking about it. “Okay,” he all but whispered. “I’ll stay. I’ll fight… for my soulmates.”

“And _that_ ,” she stood on tiptoes as if to kiss his cheek. “Is more than enough for us.” On impulse, at the last second Bucky turned his head, so he caught her kiss full on the lips, and after a moment she pulled away with a playful smile on her face. “Welcome home, James. Believe it or not, you are going to fit in perfectly around here.”


End file.
